How to Play Lotto 6/49 in Canada, From Pick to Claim

How to play Lotto 6/49 fits in one breath: choose six numbers from 1 to 49, buy a C$3 ticket for a Wednesday or Saturday draw, then compare your line with the six winning numbers and the Bonus Ball. The part that's easy to miss is that the same play is also entered in the Gold Ball Draw, which runs separately from your six numbers. Here's the whole process in order, with the odds for each matching tier and the small print worth knowing before you go looking for a prize.

Playing Lotto 6/49 in Canada, from first pick to claim

Lotto 6/49 is a national game run by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation (ILC), but you won't buy a ticket from the ILC itself. Tickets are sold through the regional lottery corporations: BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation), WCLC (Western Canada Lottery Corporation), OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation), Loto-Québec and Atlantic Lottery. Whichever one serves your part of the country is where your ticket comes from. Once that's settled, learning how to play Lotto 6/49 comes down to five steps.

Step 1: Pick six numbers from 1 to 49

Each line is six different numbers between 1 and 49. Birthdays, a favourite pattern, or numbers chosen with your eyes closed all stand on equal footing, because every combination of six has the same chance of being drawn. No set of numbers is luckier than another, whatever a "system" might promise.

You'll know this step worked when the printed ticket shows your six numbers exactly as you chose them. If one is wrong or missing, raise it with the retailer before you leave the counter rather than after the draw.

Step 2: Buy your ticket before the draw you want

The ticket price is C$3, and Lotto 6/49 draws take place every Wednesday and Saturday. Before you tuck the ticket away, make sure it's for the draw you meant to enter. If you were aiming for Saturday and something looks off, the retailer is the person to sort it out while you're still there.

Step 3: Compare your line with the six winning numbers and the Bonus Ball

Each draw produces six winning numbers plus a Bonus Ball. Check each line on your ticket on its own, counting how many of your six numbers appear among the winning six.

The Bonus Ball deserves a moment, because it doesn't work like the other six. It only comes into play in the five-plus-Bonus and two-plus-Bonus tiers, where one of your remaining numbers matches the Bonus Ball. For every other tier, only the six winning numbers count.

Here are the matching tiers and their odds. Every figure is per line, meaning one set of six numbers.

The overall odds of a line winning a prize are 1 in 6.6, while matching all six is a genuine long shot. Draws are random and independent: past results don't change the odds of any future draw, and the numbers drawn most often historically carry no predictive value.

To check your six numbers quickly, pull up the latest results on the Lotto 6/49 page on lottery.fm or enter them in the lottery.fm checker. If a line looks like a winner, keep the ticket somewhere safe; Step 5 explains why timing matters.

Step 4: Look at the Gold Ball Draw, too

Every Lotto 6/49 play is entered in the Gold Ball Draw as well as the Classic Draw. The six winning numbers, the Bonus Ball and the matching tiers from Step 3 all belong to the Classic Draw, and its top prize for matching all six, Division 1, is a fixed C$5,000,000 that is shared if more than one line matches all six. The Gold Ball Draw is separate from your six numbers, so a line that misses in the Classic Draw hasn't necessarily missed everything.

This guide doesn't cover the Gold Ball Draw's prizes or odds. For those, and for how that draw applies to your ticket, your regional lottery corporation has the official details.

Step 5: Claim within the one-year window

Lotto 6/49 has a claim period of one year. That sounds generous, but tickets have a habit of vanishing into coat pockets and glove boxes, so checking soon after each draw beats finding a forgotten ticket months later. If you do have a winner, ask the regional lottery corporation that sold your ticket how and where to claim, and confirm exactly when your claim period ends.

Lotto 6/49 small print worth knowing

More lines mean more entries, not better odds per line. Each extra line is one more entry, at proportional cost. The odds in the table apply to every line individually, and nothing about how you choose your numbers changes them. Playing more lines is a spending choice, not a way around the math.

Regional games are separate. Encore, Extra, Tag and Western Extra are run by individual regional lottery corporations and aren't part of the national Lotto 6/49 draws. The odds and tiers in this guide don't cover them, and a result in one game tells you nothing about the other.

Tax. Lottery winnings are not taxed in Canada, according to the Canada Revenue Agency, but income you later earn on a prize, such as interest, is taxable. That's general information, not advice — for your own circumstances, ask the CRA or a qualified professional.

These facts carry a date. Everything here describes Lotto 6/49 as of October 4, 2026. Lottery formats do change, so if you're reading this well after that date, check the Lotto 6/49 page on lottery.fm for the current setup before relying on any figure above.

Lotto 6/49 works best as a bit of midweek or weekend entertainment, played for fun within a budget you set in advance. If gambling has stopped being fun, support is available through the problem gambling helpline for your province or territory — the Responsible Gambling Council lists every one on its Help for Canadians page.

Always confirm winning numbers, prize amounts, and deadlines with the official operator before acting on a ticket — the operator's published results are the only ones that count.

Sources

• lottery.fm game facts database · facts as of October 4, 2026 · "Lotto 6/49 — game facts" · Lotto 6/49 game facts on lottery.fm
• WCLC · "LOTTO 6/49" prize information · Lotto 6/49 on WCLC